Checking the Facts on Insurance Coverage of Hair Transplants

By Victoria E. Knight

Are hair transplants really covered by health insurance? The Health Blog wondered after hearing presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain slam the procedure for the follicularly challenged during the presidential debate this week.

In case you missed it, McCain claimed that his plan for insurance tax credits would give 95% of Americans the funds to shop around for the insurance of their choice, adding:

All of those people will be covered except for those who have these gold-plated Cadillac kinds of policies. You know, like hair transplants…

But the notion that hair transplants symbolize profligacy in the U.S. health-care caught our fancy. So we called William Parsley, a dermatologist who is president of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery, a nonprofit group of about 700 hair-restoration doctors world-wide. Parsley laughed out loud at McCain’s remark: “I thought it was funny that hair transplants would come up in a presidential debate.”

But insurance payment for cosmetic hair is the real joke. Parsley said that only hair restoration as part of reconstructive surgery necessitated by severe burns, serious injuries and accidents is customarily covered by insurance.

Such reconstructive surgeries account for about 1 to 2% of hair transplants performed, he said. What about the gold-plated health insurance, we asked. Ever see any of that? Yes, he said, twice in 34 years of practice that insurers paid for a patients’ cosmetic hair transplant. The most recent instance was two decades ago, though.

Are we alone in withholding payment for hair loss? Parsley says no, cosmetic hair transplants aren’t covered in countries with government-run health systems. “They don’t even offer that in Canada,” he said.